Milwaukee was one of the first northern U.S. cities to have a Juneteenth celebration, here's how it has grown
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebrations began in 1971. The first Juneteenth event in the city, organized by Northcott Neighborhood House, was in 1972.
"I don't care if it is raining. My mother said I could stay until 10 o'clock."
That's what a jubilant child at one of Milwaukee's first Juneteenth celebrations told a Milwaukee Journal reporter in 1972. It was just a glimpse into the early days of a longstanding annual event celebrating Black culture and ringing in the summer season, with performances, food and a variety of vendors.
Juneteenth Day takes place on June 19 every year, commemorating the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and notified the last remaining slaves in the South that the Civil War had ended and they were free. That was two years after President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Celebrations of the historic event in some parts of the South began soon after, died down in the early 1900s due to economic and cultural forces, and experienced a revival in the late 1960s.
In Milwaukee, public festivities on Juneteenth Day first took place in 1972, making it one of the first northern cities to host celebrations to commemorate emancipation. Since then, Milwaukee has been home to large and vibrant annual celebrations every year, hosted by the Northcott Neighborhood House, a community center in Milwaukee's Harambee neighborhood.
The celebration has evolved over the years. Typically, it features a street market and parade, but this year’s Juneteenth observances will take different forms, as Northcott’s street festival has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I just think that Milwaukee takes the celebration much more seriously than [other cities],” said Clayborn Benson, founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Black Historical Society and Museum.
“They put all out, from the vendors to the food that’s being served. Seniors and older people come out during the daytime, politicians come out shaking hands, and the young people come out midday and [in the] later part of the afternoon.”
The annual celebration began in 1972 when then-Northcott staff member Margaret Rogers told others how much she had enjoyed a Juneteenth Day celebration in Georgia when she was there to visit her grandparents. Based on Rogers' experience, Northcott decided to begin a similar tradition in Milwaukee — spearheaded in its early days by festival executive director Marvin Hannah and coordinator Jan Kemp-Cole — and the festival soon became the unofficial opening of summer.
"At that time businesses were moving out of the neighborhood, people were moving out of the community," MacArthur Weddle, the retired long-time director of Northcott and a driving force behind the festival for several decades, told the Journal Sentinel last year. "Northcott thought a Juneteenth Day celebration in Milwaukee would be a good way to start bringing them back."
Milwaukee’s celebration has grown in numbers over the years. In 1972, the Milwaukee Journal reported an estimated 3,000 attendees at the Juneteenth festival. That number grew to 100,000 by 1977, and landed between 160,000 and 170,000 in 1994.
While some other cities host Juneteenth celebrations on the weekend nearest to the holiday, Milwaukee celebrates on the 19th every year, regardless of what day of the week it is, Benson said.
“It takes place on the day,” he said. “Just like we celebrate the Fourth of July on the Fourth of July, we celebrate Juneteenth Day on June 19th … do we want to do it on the weekend? Some people do. We don’t.”
Wisconsin is “unique and special” when it comes to its historical attitude toward slavery, Benson said, which possibly contributes to the size and lasting power of the Juneteenth celebrations here. He said that while people in other states were willing to covertly help runaway slaves after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, the Wisconsin Supreme Court became the only state court to declare the law unconstitutional.
The Juneteenth celebrations were also an avenue to raise issues relevant to the Black community in Milwaukee. Politicians routinely attend the event, and the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP used the festival as an opportunity to register voters in 1982.
In 1987, the Milwaukee Sentinel reported that a 200- to 300-person cohort of demonstrators, led by Alds. Michael R. McGee and Paul A. Henningson and County Supervisor Terrance L. Pitts, marched through the city's streets — beginning at the Juneteenth festivities — to push for the creation of 15,000 to 25,000 jobs for Black Milwaukeeans.
Three years later on Juneteenth Day, the Sentinel reported that McGee led another group of around 200 protesters to the Journal Communications building, where they voiced complaints about the Journal's coverage of the issues facing Black communities.
This year, Juneteenth Day occurs amid nationwide protests over police brutality and systemic racism against Black Americans, sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a police officer pinned down Floyd's neck with his knee for over eight minutes.
“This is a serious moment in our history and time,” Benson said. “People are saying that we want equality, and what else is Juneteenth day speaking to but equality?”
Contact Asha Prihar at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @AshaPrihar.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How Juneteenth celebrations started and grew in Milwaukee